


A Thousand Different Lifetimes Live In Your Eyes

by AnonEMouse



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Partial Fix-It, but then they get better, kind of, space babies, they still die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 16:55:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9194351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEMouse/pseuds/AnonEMouse
Summary: Cassian and Jyn, the way it could have been, the way it is, the way it might be.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Breaking a years-long writing block because Cassian Andor and Jyn Erso had a poetic end but deserve so much more.

 

Here’s how it could have been.

//

They could have met in a market, she a little girl all big eyes and round cheeks, he a tall, half-starved boy. He’s alone, and she’s alone, but he can tell she is new to it. Her eyes are too wide and she is too pale, she is afraid. So he crosses the street, takes her hand, and leads her to his hide out, where he has food and an extra blanket, almost like he was waiting for her. He tells her he will show her how to survive. They are inseparable.

//

They could have met as children, growing up together, all they’ve ever known. He holds her as a baby, she follows him as a child, he punches the first boy who tries to kiss her, she hates all of his girlfriends. He has to wait, because he is a little older, and she wants to hurry up because she has always known he is hers. They fight constantly, until one day, in the middle of an argument neither can precisely recall, he kisses her. They are never parted.

//

They could have met in a jail cell. It would almost be embarrassing, getting caught, but that is the whole point. His contact is in jail, so in jail he has to be, too. Doesn’t make it any easier to go down in the brawl, to let the ’Troopers cuff him, to pray to whatever deity may be listening that they don’t realize who they have actually arrested. They put him in a cell next to his contact, but there is already someone inside. She is pretty enough that he notices, and he can’t afford the distraction, but oh, he does notice her, with her light eyes and stubborn chin. She makes him immediately for a spy, challenges his objectives, threatens his mission, and scoffs at his loyalty. _Blind obedience_ , she calls it, _no better than a Stormtrooper_ , and the blood sings in his veins. When his rescue comes, he takes her with him. He recognizes a fellow rebel. They fight side by side.

//

They could have met in a cantina. She’s drinking alone, and watching him watch the room. He’s good, she’s the only one who has picked him out, and only then because she thought he was an off duty ’Trooper when he came in. Something about his bearing, it just screams _military_. But no, he’s not one of them. So he’s probably on the other side, but given the lack of uniform and general scruffiness of his appearance, he does the kind of work they don’t like admitting to. They’re supposed to be the good guys, after all. She keeps an eye on him, and she knows he’s noticed her, too, felt her watching, but he doesn’t react. When he’s made his contact and he’s just sticking around for one more drink so as not to be entirely obvious, she sidles up next to him at the bar. Touches his arm, fingers tightening when he instinctively twitches like he was going for his blaster. Smiles at him, takes in his dark eyes, older than he really is. And leads him onto the dance floor, where they sway to the beat and she murmurs in his ear, and when the bucketheads  show up, she helps him escape because did he really not know what kind of backstabbing scum he was dealing with? Clearly, he needs all the help he can get. She never leaves his side.

//

Here’s how it is.

//

They’re on Scarif and the elevator is descending. They met in a war room and have not known each other long, they do not like each other, and trust has only conditionally been given. But they have worked together, and they have done something impossible, and it has cost them everything. They are going to die, and they both know it. They both accept it. He had always thought he would die in an alley, shot in the back, or maybe stabbed, unnoticed until someone realized he missed a check in, and then quickly forgotten, just another misplaced tool. But there is something healing in this death, in service of something so much greater than himself. It makes whole all the pieces of himself he has lost along the way, with every murder and execution he has committed. And though she has never thought of her death, she feels the absolution of it, that her father and her name will be redeemed. She understands now, why Saw didn’t run. When you reach the end, you have reached the end.

They look at one another, and in the silence between them lay all the things there is no time to say. The apology, the forgiveness, the gratitude, the relief, the acceptance. They can feel the reverberation of everything that could have been, should have been, but their path was unmarked and they were both thrown off course. He wants to say that he was wrong about her, but he settles for: _Your father would be proud_. She wants to tell him she understands him, but simply embraces him, holding him close, so that he isn’t alone. And then they don’t speak. They’re past words, here at the end, when they finally arrive at the place they were always meant to be, dying in each other’s arms.

//

Here’s how it will be.

//

_Watch where you’re going_ , she snaps.

_Get out of the way_ , he barks.

In a half-forgotten passage outside an old meeting room, they stare each other down. He’s tall and lanky, with untidy black hair and dark, dark eyes that see everything and say nothing. She’s round-cheeked and glaring, her light eyes seeing right through him. His eyes narrow, her lip curls, and for a moment he can smell sand and salt water and she can feel searing heat on her skin. They storm off in opposite directions, he to Operations and she to the hangar, but they each look back, compelled to see if the other is looking, too.

They will always be looking for each other, across meetings and messes, through crowds and empty hangars. She will pry details from Intelligence she’s not supposed to have, and he will wait anxiously for the casualty lists after the Starfighters go out. He will clutch her to him each time she returns, and she will hold him in the darkness of his room after every kill they ask him to complete. He will pretend he’s not jealous of Dameron, she will act like she doesn’t miss him when he’s gone. They will be separated, he will go missing and she will be shot down, but they will always come back for one another. They will fight, hard, but love even harder, and this time, they will make it.


End file.
